Mexico is the second largest economy in Latin America. The World Bank Group engagement with the country is structured around a model that provides development solutions adapted to the country, with an integral package of financial, knowledge and convening services.
Read More »

‘Financial Inclusion and Access to Financing’Thank you very much.It is a pleasure to be here today and talk about financial inclusion.Financial inclusion is critical in the fight against poverty, yet too... Show More + many people have no access to financial tools or credit.An estimated 2.5 billion people in the world do not have access to formal financial services linked to account. This includes 80 percent of the people living on less than $2 per day. Up to 200 million small businesses globally lack the financing which they need.Financial development matters because it not only promotes growth, it is also a catalyst for ensuring that prosperity is widely shared. So the deficit in financial access can hold people back from moving out of poverty and increasing inequality.People who are “unbanked” find it difficult to save, plan for the future, start a business, or recover from crisis or loss.Access to financial services improves access to health and education - through cheaper payments or remittances Show Less -

On World Water Day we invite you to discover the most important challenges that a region like Latin America faces, through cartoons drawn for the World Bank Group by artists from around the world. 1.... Show More + For water services to work properly is essential to undertake regular maintenance just like you would with a computer or a car.The amount of water lost before reaching households – due, for example, to broken pipes - is estimated to be around 15% in developed countries, while in developing countries it can reach up to 50%.Learn more: Improvements in Water and Sewage Systems to Reach More than 200 Thousand Residents in Northern Lima 2. Due to global warming, glaciers, one of the most important sources of fresh water, are melting.In widely covered of glaciers, like the White Range in Peru or the Real Range in Bolivia, the total area has shrunk by about a third compared to the surface area during the Little Ice Age.Learn more: With Data and Technology, Ecuador is Seeking S Show Less -

Washington, D.C.—Forests and trees provide many economic, social and environmental services and values, from creating jobs to providing housing, food and energy to delivering carbon sequestration and watershed... Show More + protection.So, in celebration of International Day of Forests, the World Bank would like to shine a spotlight on the importance of forests and sustainable development. Here are five things to know about this critical resource in 2015:An estimated 1.3 billion people—nearly 20 percent of humanity—rely on forests and forest products for their livelihoods, with the majority living on less than $1.25 a day. The most recent evidence, drawn from more than 300 communities living in or near forested areas in 24 developing countries, suggests that the contribution of forests to household incomes in such areas is surprisingly large—28 percent. This is roughly the same as earnings from agriculture.An estimated 25 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions come from deforestation, unsustainab Show Less -

Potential actionsAlthough the winds are favorable with respect to women’s labor market participation in Latin America, more actions should be taken to reduce the wage gap and favor women’s school-work... Show More + transition:Improvements in transport, increased access to childcare and flexible work schedules can contribute to increasing women’s available time. In Argentina, free public childcare services increased women’s labor market participation by 7% in 2011.Increase access to assets, land and credit. For example, by increasing access to formal credit markets (beyond microcredit) and to financial training. Support vulnerable families. Especially poor households headed by single women.Promote women’s empowerment through training programs and support to the labor-market transition and the creation of women’s employment networks.Additionally, the specialist believes it is crucial to work with the private sector to reduce the wage and employment gap given that this sec Show Less -

New analysis highlights need for better coordination and a focus on behavioral barriers alongside effective social and economic policies.LIMA, Peru, March 9, 2015 – One out of every five Latin Americans... Show More + or around 130 million people have never known anything but poverty, subsisting on less than US$4-a-day throughout their lives. These are the region´s chronically poor, who have remained so despite unprecedented inroads against poverty in Latin America and the Caribbean since the turn of the century.Their situation is becoming more precarious as the economic boom that significantly contributed to reduce poverty dwindles. Regional GDP growth has slowed, from about six percent in 2010 to an estimated 0.8 percent in 2014. This contraction will likely take away one of the biggest drivers behind the strong reduction in poverty: an improved job market.A new World Bank report, Left Behind, Chronic Poverty in Latin America and the Caribbean, takes a closer look at the region’s entrenched poor, w Show Less -

ChallengeIn 2002, before the creation of Seguro Popular, only half of the Mexican population benefitted from health insurance, largely through their employer. The self-employed, underemployed and unemployed... Show More + accessed health services through public providers with a co-pay, or they paid for private care. Poor and uninsured families, whose well-being was vulnerable to the financial consequences of illness or accidents, financed their health-care expenditures out-of-pocket. The budgets for public health care were uncertain and there was no defined package of free health services for the beneficiaries. In fact, more than half of all health-care expenditures in Mexico were paid for out-of-pocket. By 2008, Seguro Popular counted over 27 million beneficiaries, who could access health services without a co-pay. However, in 2009 the economic crisis led to a deep, though brief, contraction of over 6 percent of GDP, with increased poverty and pressure on the finances of vulnerable f Show Less -

Q: What explains this lack of skills?R: A recent McKinsey global study demonstrated that 72% of educators surveyed felt that they had adequately prepared young people for the labor market, yet just 42%... Show More + of employers believed that recent graduates were adequately prepared. Compared with the other countries studied, the difference in perceptions was particularly marked in two Latin American countries (Mexico and Brazil).The exact causes of the lack of skills are not clear. But there are some theories. First, the quality of education: the skills acquired do not meet the standards or the needs of the labor market. Second, schools are only just beginning to change teaching practices to teach high-level cognitive skills, which are learned through active problem-solving, teamwork and project-based learning. Third, throughout the world, teaching socio-emotional skills has been left to the home environment. We recently completed a study which found that primary school is the ideal time to teach Show Less -

A few months ago, Pamela, a 20-year-old from Mexico, dropped out of her last year of secondary school. She had too many absences due to family reasons and the school demanded that she study for eight more... Show More + months in order to earn her degree.In the end, she decided to drop out because of time and money issues. Today she works at a restaurant and has just completed a secondary school certificate. She says that since she left school, her opinion about education has changed. “Your ideas start to change and you make more of an effort to study, to move forward,” says Pamela. “After all, your family is not going to keep supporting you forever.”Of every 100 students who enter primary school in Mexico, just 46 will complete upper secondary school. The graduation rate at this level in Mexico is 47%, below the Latin American average of 52%, and much lower than the average of 84% for OECD countries (the most developed in the world), according to a new World Bank study.Over the past 20 y Show Less -

In Brazil, a few kilometers from one of the most popular beaches among young Latin Americans, a group of twenty-somethings are living away from the discotheques, the surf and sand. Instead, they enjoy... Show More + good incomes, manage their own businesses and avoid the stresses of big city life.They were born on these lands and – unlike their parents, for whom the countryside was an unfortunate fate – these young people have found their true vocation in agriculture. What is even better, they have the opportunity to develop a long-term professional future although the workload is intense."Everything is more relaxed, starting with the clothes we wear,” says 25-year-old Jilson Vargas. He used to work in an office, but it involved a half-hour trip down a dirt road each way. “And I had to wear a suit and tie!” he exclaims.But Jilson’s life changed completely when the rural youth group he belongs to was finally able to buy the machinery needed to produce rattan. Rattan is used to make baskets and fu Show Less -

“They hit me, insult me, call me names,” says a high school student when describing a typical day at his school in Latin America. His is not an isolated case: beatings, insults and harassment form part... Show More + of daily life for millions of Latin American children.In fact, more than half of sixth-graders in the region report having been the victim of some type of violence at the hands of their classmates (theft, insults, beatings or threats), according to a study published in the magazine of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC).In Mexico, nearly 69% of high school students who responded to an Education Ministry survey said they had experienced some type of aggression or violence at school. In Brazil, 70% of students reported having seen a classmate being intimidated at least once, according to Plan International. UNICEF reported that 66% of students in Argentina said they were aware of frequent harassment of students.These figures clearly demonstrate that differen Show Less -

Expanding the issuer and investor basesAs the market grows, the size of green bonds is growing and new types of issuers are coming in.Cities and state agencies, which have used bonds in the past to raise... Show More + money for infrastructure projects, have started issuing green bonds to help support and highlight environment- and climate-friendly projects, such as efficiency improvements and public transportation. Johannesburg, South Africa, issued Africa’s first municipal green bond last year to help finance emissions-reducing projects including bio gas energy, solar power, and sustainable transportation.Corporations and utilities have also started issuing green bonds. The French utility GDF Suez issued the largest green bond to date, 2.5 billion euros, intended to finance renewable energy projects such as wind farms and energy efficiency work such as smart metering and integrated districting heating networks. The expansion of issuers has drawn attention to the importance of transparency and stand Show Less -

If you’re with your family, you’re with your family “I’m often irritable at home because my work is exhausting.” “My family complains that I don’t pay enough attention to them because I’m always working.”... Show More + “I make sure that my partner/children/family does not feel neglected, even when I have a lot of work.”These are some of the responses to a survey of the Hacé el click hoy campaign launched by the Argentine Advertising Council. The campaign seeks to raise awareness on striking a balance between work and personal life and on the importance of family ties.“It’s paradoxical because you work for the well-being of your loved ones, but they see our worst side because we are tired from working,” says Debeljuh, who provided advice for the campaign. “Balancing work and personal life is as much an ethical question as it is a question of productivity,” says Rigolini. “Certain conditions permit adapting to workers’ needs and improving their performance and commitment.”Thus, together with Show Less -

Climate change. These are increasingly common words in Latin America, where the population suffered the devastating effects of climate change in 2014. It is also posing a serious threat in 2015.It is no... Show More + exaggeration that the signs are there and cannot be ignored. In recent years, Latin America has been recording more intense and frequent storms, longer drought periods and the disappearance of majestic Andean glaciers.All of this is a consequence of an increasingly warm world, which has a direct impact on agriculture and fishing, and therefore threatens the capacity to produce food for the more than 7 billion people inhabiting the planet.According to the most recent Turn Down the Heat report, Latin America is responsible for just 12.5% of greenhouse gas emissions – the main culprit in global warming – but will be one of the most affected regions if the global temperature rises 4 degrees centigrade, which is forecast for 2100.Experts warn that if nothing changes, the young people of toda Show Less -

It appears that this year, Latin America will no longer grow at the same pace as it did over the last decade. However, it will be the year when citizens will demand better services to boost their quality... Show More + of life.Clearly, one of the region’s most pressing problems is public insecurity. With only 10% of the world’s population, Latin America accounts for 30% of all homicides. This, together with other crimes, has grave consequences for individuals, but also for the region’s economies and development.“Strategies for studying violence, to understand it and the methods for trying to evaluate it and explain what works and what doesn’t, are very similar to those used to understand other epidemics,” said epidemiologist Andrés Villaveces in this interview. Dr. Villaveces forms part of a team working to create a regional platform for exchanging knowledge and ideas on how to address the problem.Some of these ideas are being put into practice, not only by governments and international org Show Less -

The technology that enables us to receive signals from space has advanced by leaps and bounds since the launch of the first satellite, Sputnik, just a few decades ago.Today, in addition to photographing... Show More + the Earth or a comet, monitoring activities from above (“spying” to some) and suggesting the best route to the office, satellites are becoming allies for development.The European Space Agency, for example, is providing data and images to international development organizations, which use them to design and implement projects in Latin America and other regions.“The satellite observation of the Earth provides accurate information and can be used all over the world, but it is particularly useful in environments with little information, which is often the case in developing countries,” says Anna Burzykowska, a project specialist at the World Bank.In Latin America, the information transmitted by satellites is used to prevent disasters, measure water pollution and monitor sea levels. The idea Show Less -

On first-ever Universal Health Coverage Day, all countries urged to make quality health coverage accessible to everyone, everywhere.NEW YORK, 12 December 2014 – A new global coalition of more than 500... Show More + leading health and development organizations worldwide is urging governments to accelerate reforms that ensure everyone, everywhere, can access quality health services without being forced into poverty. The coalition was launched today, on the first-ever Universal Health Coverage Day, to stress the importance of universal access to health services for saving lives, ending extreme poverty, building resilience against the health effects of climate change and ending deadly epidemics such as Ebola.Universal Health Coverage Day marks the two-year anniversary of a United Nations resolution, unanimously passed on 12 December 2012, which endorsed universal health coverage as a pillar of sustainable development and global security. Despite progress in combatting global killers such as HIV/AIDS and Show Less -

ChallengeWhen a crisis hits, the chronically poor are most at risk of suffering irreversible losses. Because they have fewer strategies to mitigate the crisis, such as accessing more credit or seeking... Show More + out more work, they have to reduce consumption of food, or other basic needs, and investments in education, thereby further reducing their long-term earnings potential. Even after the crisis passes, the poor have difficulty reversing these losses in nutrition, earnings, and education. With a demonstrated ability to reach a large number of the poor with a positive impact, Oportunidades was central to the Mexican Government’s domestic policy response to the global economic crisis of 2008; but, financing the social spending needed to increase benefit payments and expand the program’s coverage was challenging, given increasing fiscal difficulties associated with the 2008 crisis. SolutionThe World Bank-funded Support to Oportunidades Project was designed to support the country’s flag Show Less -

Hello everyone.First, I would like to thank the Council on Foreign Relations for graciously hosting this event. And thank you, Mark, for your kind introduction. The Nature Conservancy has been an important... Show More + actor on climate change and environmental preservation issues worldwide, and you have made it even more so with your innovative leadership. And given the time you’ve spent in the financial world, you know well one of the themes of my talk today – that economic policy is the key to mobilizing a coordinated global response to climate change.I won’t be able to travel to Peru to attend the 20th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change this week. However, I will be watching closely as the delegates set the stage for an agreement to be reached in one year’s time in Paris that should transform the way we live for generations. At this key moment, I’m pleased to return to the Council on Foreign Relations to share the World Bank Group’s vision of a Show Less -

Local communities in Peru are helping make decisions that impact the country's forests—including the Amazon, which covers over half of the country, but is being cleared for subsistence farming... Show More + and industrial agriculture, as well as due to illegal logging. With support from the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF) and the Forest Investment Program (FIP), Peru's Ministry of Environment, along with agencies such as the Ministry of Agriculture, is preparing a program to keep the natural forest standing and to reduce carbon emissions. Local communities are also being engaged in Peru’s REDD+ readiness programs. To date, over one thousand people have been reached through workshops, roundtables, and direct coordination on REDD+.Going even further than meaningful participation is the joint preparation of the Saweto Dedicated Grant Mechanism for Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities in Peru. The Bank is supporting Indigenous leaders to design the Saweto DGM that will be go Show Less -

Climate change is a clear and dire threat to Latin America and the Caribbean. A threat in which the region has had little or no role in the making, but in which it is already an important part of the solution.Dear... Show More + friends, I appreciate this opportunity to address you on this important and timely topic. The report we are launching today is the third in the Turn Down the Heat series and, for the first time, covers our region.This report is based on the findings of a global research series commissioned by the World Bank to the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and Climate Analytics.We thought a stand-alone report for Latin America and the Caribbean would add value to the solutions-focused discussion already taking place in the region.In this regard, I would like to thank Cindy Arnson and the Latin America Program at the Wilson Center for partnering with us to further the discussion on the development implications of climate change for Latin America and the Caribbean.The challe Show Less -